Latin American Soccer ES

'll II

Ma t t h e w Br o w n a n d Gl o r i a La n c i

A Transnational Investigation of Football and Urban Heritage

in Sao Paulo, 1890 to 1930

In t r o d u c t i o n

The period 1890-1930 witnessed an unprecedented series of economic, social

and cultural changes in Sao Paulo. There was major immigration, massive

investment in urban infrastructure and consequently considerable social

transformation. All of these were linked in some way to the major British presence

in the city and in Brazil more widely. Investing and supplying specialized

workforce in the constraction of railroads, public transport and other urban

services they would pave the way for the former colonial town of Sao Paulo to

become a modem city at the dawn of the 20* century and later one of the biggest

metropolises in the world.

Coexisting in a cultural and socially different environment, and interacting with

the Sao Paulo elite, workers, industrialists, and ex-slaves as well as European

immigrants, the British also left important cultural legacies, including the

introduction of football as a sporting practice. This paper takes the history of

football and situates it within a transnational perspective, drawing out the degree

to which the modernization of urban space and the appearance of football were

connected and influenced by the British community during the period between

1890 and 1930.

One of the key questions we seek to answer as part of the larger project of

which this chapter forms part, is, whether the growth of football was a cause of or

a symptom 6f Britain’s ‘informal empire’ in Latin America. 1890-1930, the period

18 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

we look at here, is generally assumed to have been the high point of British

informal empire in Latin America, which was strongest in Brazil, Argentina and

Uruguay. 1 At the heart of this question is the contradiction at the heart of much

writing on the history of football in Latin America, of which a good example is

the celebrated work of the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano. The author’s Elfutbol a

sol y sombra expresses some warmth towards the British ‘importers’ of football

in that book, which sits uneasily with his stark, angry denunciations of

imperialism (cultural as well as economic) in his other books and journalism. The

role of football as a consequence of informal empire might seem simple; but the

adoption of the sport in Brazil and elsewhere had many other consequences -

including those discussed in this chapter.2 In this paper we want to look further

back at the parallel and interlinked changes in sporting culture and urban

development that occurred in Sao Paulo at the end of the nineteenth century.

Sport, urban development and the British presence: all of these have been closely

linked in Latin American history, yet those links are only hazily understood by

scholars.

Br a z i l a n d Br i t a i n

Brazil’s nineteenth xentury was a period »of drastic transformation. The

transition from.Portuguese colonial rule to an independent Brazilian,Empire

(1822), took-place imder.considerable British influence.'Historians of “informal

empire” such-as Manchester, Grahpm and Smith saw’British “pre-eminence” in

independent Brazil as reflecting and being a consequence .of, the critical role the

1 Matthew Brown (ed): Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and Capital. Oxford 2008. j

2 Edu^do Galeano: El futbo) a sol y sombra. Montevideo 1995jL>avid Wood: Reading the Game; The Role of Football in Peruvian Literature. In; David Wood and Louise P. Johnson (eds.); Sporting Cultures: Hispanic Perspectives 4n Sport, Text and the Body. London 2008 p. 128-146.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 19

British had played in facilitating the Portuguese court’s transatlantic crossing in

1807. The historically friendly relations between England and Portugal in Europe

were transferred to the colony in the early nineteenth-century, and were further

accentuated when King JoSo VI settled in 1808.

When Brazil became an independent nation in 1822, Britain had already

developed a consolidated position in the coimtry’s economy, which could have

amounted to “informal empire”. The political turmoil that led to the abolition of

slavery in 1888 followed by the implementation of a Republican estate in 1889

seemed not to disturb the British business community in the country. By 1900,

Britain was still the leading foreign investor and the main supplier of Brazilian

ilnports.3 This situation started to change around the onset of the First World War

because of Anglo-German competition and the rise of North American economic

power in the region, but it was only after the Second World War that Britain

finally saw its influence in Brazil being definitively transferred to the United

States.

In the nineteenth century the British were the principal foreign community in

Brazil, though there was substantial competition (as well as collaboration) with

rivals such us Germany, France and the United States. As Guenther has

demonstrated, “the British economic expansion into [Brazil...] was a fascinating

compendium of improvised diplomatic strategy, business gambles, and personal

dealings of greater or lesser success.’”*

The historical period in Brazil known as “Primeira Repiiblica” (First Republic)

was under the control of agrarian oligarchies from the Southeast region. The

presidency of the cormtry during the period was alternated between politicians

from Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, while the city of Rio de Janeiro remained as

^ Louise H. Guenther: The Artful Seductions of Informal Empire. In Brown: Informal Empire, p. 208-228.

^ Louise H. Guenther: British Merchants in Nineteenth-Century Brazil: Business, Culture and Identity in Bahia, 1808-1850. Oxford 2004, p. 169.

20 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

the capital city and centre of the government. The prosperity brought by the coffee

trade from the end of the nineteenth-century placed Sao Paulo at the centre of

economic power and the local aristocracy, called “baroes do cafe” (coffee barons)

enjoyed its heyday. The city rapidly gained the aspect of a modem-European-style

landscape and the urban infrastracture was developed out of the natural landscape.

Sa o Pa u l o i n t h e FmsT Re pu b l i c (1889-1930) a n d t h e Mo d e r n i s a t i o n

OF Ur b a n Spa c e

At the end of the nineteenth century the main capital cities in Europe were

experiencing great enthusiasm at the triumphs of capitalist society and its

marvellous technological achievements, enjoying modernity and material

progress. The urban reform of Paris between 1853 and 1869 became a touchstone

of this'phenomenon and thereby also became a model of modem urban planning

In Brazil the city of Rio de Janeiro, at that time still the capital of the country,

inaugurated a phase of extensive public urban works with the 1902’s Pereira

Passosl master plan. After that Sao Paulo and other emergent cities as Manaus,

Belem, Curitiba and Porto Alegre were also the targets of urban modernisation

plans as urban:elifes sbught to emulate Rio’s successes.

During the three"cepturies since it was founded Sao Paulo ,^iad remained a-little

town surroimded by farms and small mral properties where most of the local

populatioa lived. Sao Paulo was,founded in 1553 on.a plateau 700 metres above

the sea Teveh TKe core of the village was placed in a hill, between two rivers

(Tamandajuei and the Anhangabau) which were tributaries of Tiete, the main river

that crossed the region from eastito west; Connections \t?ith other towns in the

region and with the city of Rio de Janeiro remained extremely precarious, setting

Sao Paulo apart from the main social, economic and cultural developments in the

country.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 21

All this changed with the coffee boom and the consfruction of the railways.

When the first railway was inaugurated in 1867, linking Sao Paulo and the port of

Santos, it brought an urban revolution to the city, opening its tiny business core

to international markets through the coffee trade. The urban landscape of Sao

Paulo remained dominated by the old colonial town which had been built on taipa

de pilao (rammed earth) until the late 1880s. The modem infrastmcture that was

subsequently built was simply “applied” on top of the old urban fabric.^

The historical period inaugurated by the end of slavery in Brazil (1888) and the

proclamation of the Republic (1889) rapidly changed these traditional urban

characteristics and soon the city was being developed under heavy European

influence and its ideas of modernity, civilisation and progress. Architects and

urban designers pursued renovation, urban expansion and “grandeur”. Antonio da

Silva Prado, the first appointed major of Sao Paulo (1899-1911), inaugurated

developments that are still today landmarks in the city, such as Pinacoteca do

Estado and Estagao da Luz. His successor Barao de Duprat (1911-1914) became

a sort of “Haussman paulistano” (a Sao Paulo Baron Haussman), inaugurating the

Teatro Municipal and supporting extensive redevelopment works in the old town

that widened roads and created new pedesfrian areafe and squares. Following the

fashion of the day, a French urban planner - Joseph Bouvard - was commissioned

to re-design the Vale do Anhangabau.

These improvements were taking place alongside and intertwined with the

consfruction of new infrastmcture, with the help of foreign investment. British

investors joined Canadian entrepreneurs to establish the Sao Paulo Tramway

Light and Power Company in 1899, which built up the transport network of

tramlines and provided energy supplies and communication services of telegraphy

and telephone. The infrastracture guided the expansion of the urban fabric in Sao

Paulo. Designers mapped out the occupation patterns of the city, defining workers'

5 Nestor Goulart Reis Filho: Sao Paulo e outras cidades: produ95o social e degradajao dos espafos urbanos. Sao Paulo 1994.

22 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

districts and aristocrats’ districts, originating a social-spatial division that still

remains in the contemporary city.

The unequal allocation of the urban infrastmcture, the quick dividing-up and

development of rural properties around the old town, and the real estate

speculation, both in the wealthy and in the popular districts, led to a process of

pronounced social-spatial segregation. When the Santos-Jundiai railway was

inaugurated the local elite had scarcely settled in small areas of Liberdade, Luz,

Santa Efigenia, Anhangabau and Carmo neighbourhoods.® The railway line

served to define sharper boimdaries and functioned as a barrier that pushed urban

expansion westwards, where more elevated sites and milder climate were

porrelated with healthy environment - a characteristic that had gained

considerable importance in urban planning at the end of the nineteenth century. ^

The district named Campos EUseos (after Champs Elysees, the renowned avenue

in Paris) was considered the first “modem” development in the city* * and it opened

the ^ay to tlje concentration of high incomes concentration along a quite well

recognised ^is. Frpm Campos EUseos the elite later migrated to Vila Buarque,

Higietippolis and finally to Avenida Paulista, which was inaugurated in 1892.®

This Ijistprical movement of the urban elite continued in the southwesterly

directioi\,tO'\ya}fis the reg(pn of Morumbi and it .was indirectly stimulated by

British capital in partnership with the local governntent through the Sao Paulo

TramwpyLighJandPowgr.

In 1912 ,the City.of S|o PauloTmprovemepts and Freehold Land Company Ltd.

(also known as Comparihig City) was established as a joipt initiative qf Brazilian

and British investors,that aimed to recreate iirSao ^aulo thp model of the “cidade-

j *

® Fldvio Villafa: Espapo intra-urbano no Brasil. Sao Paulo 19^8.

I Raquel Rolnik: A cidade e a lei: politica urbana e territorios na cidade de S3o Paulo. Sao Paulo 1997.

* Richard Morse: Formapao historica de S3o Paulo: de comunidade a metropole Sao Paulo 1970.

® Villapa: Espapo intra-urbano.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 23

jardim” (garden city). The company commissioned the British architects Barry

Parker and Raymond Unwin to design Jardim America, the first garden district

development in Sao Paulo, followed by Alto da Lapa (1921), Pacaembu (1925)

and Alto de Pinheiros (1925). These developments were all connected to the

tramway system and were provided with water and energy services,^®

demonstrating the particular confluence and partnership of private and public

sectors in these urban developments.

On the other side of the Santos-Jundiai railway, beyond the floodplains of

Vdrzea do Carmo, there were flat lower lands, which were more likely to be

flooded and therefore considered as unhealthy environments. These were the

neighbourhoods of Bras, Belem and Mooca where most of the industries were

located due to the physical characteristics of the terrain and the proximity to the

railway network. These areas were chosen for the first popular low-income

developments, which later expanded along the floodplains of Tiete River in the

districts of Bom Retiro, Barra Funda and Lapa.

The sudden population growth that occurred with the arrival of immigrants led

to an immediate high demand for housing, which was usually met by private

investors. One of the types of housing provision was the vila operdria (workers’

village), an enclosed communal housing area built to accommodate industrial

employees and their families.' * Overseas ideas again inspired these developments,

such those from the British reformer and socialist utopian Robert Owen. Some

villages, such as Vila Maria Zelia and Vila Economizadora, were imagined as a

model of the city on a small scale with their own schools, health centres, churches

and leisure facilities. *2

*0 Roney Bacelli: Jardim America. Serie historica dos bairros de S3o Paulo. Sao Paulo 1982.

'' Eva Blay: Eu n3o tenho onde morar: vilas operdrias na cidade de Sao Paulo. Sdo Paulo 1985.

*2 Vila Maria Zdlia, for instance, had a football pitch. Blay: Eu nao tenho onde morar.

24 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

The iirbanisation of Sao Paulo at the dawn of the twentieth century was defined

by areas whose identities were closely linked to categories of social class: the

general rule being that low incomes were predominant in the Eastern and Northern

sectors, along floodplains and factories, and high incomes dominated in the

southwest and far from industrial plants. During the 1920s the construction of

the first skyscrapers imposed a new pattern over this design with high densities in

the city core and the sprawl of housing districts. ‘4 By 1930 the city started to reach

a metropolitan scale with the Plano de Avenidas, which was the first master plan

for express avenues and roads crossing the urban area, originally based on designs

elaborated by Barry Parker, a British architect who also took part in the plans for

Companhia City. Following this discussion of the historical processes of urban expansion in Sao

Paulo, in the next section we follow Richard Giulianotti, who argues that “the

social aspects of football only become meaningful when located within their

historical and cultural context.”*^ Having located our analysis within the urban

history of Sao Paulo, we now turn to the role of Britain in the origins of football

in Brazil.

Pr i t a i n a n d t h e Or i g i n s o f Fo o t pa l l i n Br a z i l

There is general acceptance across the football-playing wprld that the British

(often, mistakeply, the English) weje responsible for..(Jisseminating the.rules and

customs of the game that we now know and love. In Britain, atdeast, historians

sense that football was one benevolent consequence of informal empire. As David

Blay: Eu nao tenho onde morar. l4jST^dia Somekh; A cidade vertical e o urbanismo modemizador: Sao Paulo 1920-1939. Sao

Paulo 1997. 15 Richard Giulianotti: Football, a Sociology of the Global Game. London 1999, p. XV.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 25

'Goldblattifi has shown in The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football,

informal empire seems to have suited the growth of football rather more than did

formal empire, where games such as cricket and rugby flourished better. The

BraziUan case is a good example where early British attempts to play cricket were

superseded by football. An expert on both the eeonomic history of Latin America, and the history and

business of football, Rory Miller’s synthesis of the link between football and

informal empire is this:

[F]rom the late 1860s onwards, British trade and investment in Latin America was growing

rapidly, in particular in Brazil and the countries of the southern cone (Argentina, Uruguay,

and Chile). As a consequence thousands of young British men emigrated to South American

cities to take up employment opportunities in the new railway and tramway compames and

banks, the British communities grew in size and influence, and the newcomers founded their

own networks of schools, clubs, and other institutions. Moreover, in the view of South

American elites, while the French might symbolise European culture, the British epitomised

modem business attitudes, and they were subjeqt to admiration and imitation for that reason.

Football thus spread quickly in the South American countries most subject to

British economic and cultural influence; by the second decade of the twentieth

century the infrastructure of the modem game was in place.

As Miller notes, by 1916 “the game had been ‘creolised’, taken over by the

respectable classes of South America, and then popularised, as working-class men

participated in their thousands both as players and as spectators.”

In recent years historical sociologists in Britain and Brazil have looked at the

broader social context for the growth of football in the twentieth century. Studies

16 David Goldblatt: The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football. London 2006.

17 Rory Miller: Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. London

1993, p. 3. 18 Miller: Britain and Latin America, p. 4.

26 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

of the crucial late nineteenth-century period of “take-off ’ are rather thinner on the

ground. Richard Giuliapotti has been one of the pioneers of the comparative

historical sociology of football, paying particular attention to twentieth century

manifestations of football culture in the continent, particularly Argentina. He

makes a persuasive case for the imperial roots of football in Latin America,

though as can be seen, this rests on rather more assumptions and anecdotal

reference to standard “founding fathers” than clear historical evidence. Giulianotti

argues that “South America was one of the earliest recipients of - and certainly

had the most spectacular success in - the early globalisation of football.” He

thinks that the British “helped spark South American football interest in three

ways”, first, through education (the likes of Alexander Watson Hutton in Buenos

Aires, Charles Miller in Sao Paulo, etc.), second, through investment and trade

connections (i.e. sailors, railwaymen looking for leisure activities), and thirdly

through touring sides (Corinthians, Southampton). He also takes as a given the

“intense cultural receptivity of South American peoples towards footbalf’i^ - a

phrase that cries out to be dissected and explained, especially for the late

nineteenth century.

Giulanbti talks oif “football’s global diffusion ... trade connections, rather than

imperial links, were ffie mbsf propitious outlets.”20 Where formal empire was

strongest, rugby and cricket took hold because they were more rule-driven, more

formal. Where informal empire was strongest, informal games like football grew

organically. But how'did they growTWhat effect did football have on social,

economic and urban development? I

Richard Giulianotti: Football, South America and Globlisation: Conceptual Paths. In: R. Miller and L. Crolley (eds.): Futbol, Futebol, Soccer: Football in the America. London 2007, p. 37-51,38.

20 Richard Giulianotti: Football: A Sociology of the Global Game. London 1999, p. 6-7.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 27

Th e Or i g i n s o f Fo o t b a l l i n Sa o Pa u l o

In Sao Paulo, the creation of jobs and business opportunities attracted an

unprecedented flow of immigrants. The emergent metropolis incorporated

‘differently ways of life: the numerous Europeans coming mainly from Portugal,

Spain, Italy and Germany were followed by Japanese, Syrians, Lebanese and

.Turkish, creating a peculiar local workforce mainly employed in manufacturing

and small retail businesses.

The foreign cla^s of urban workers shared the same challenges of surviving in

a strange, severely industrialized and, in a certain way, anarchic environment.

They looked for social integration and also entertainment amid the melting pot of

languages and cultures which they created.

Public spaces and outdoor activities made an important contribution in

connecting this new cosmopolitan society. The introduction of so-called “modem

football” by British immigrants is popularly believed-to have played a significant

role in bringing different cultures together, includ&ig the many other European

immigrants (especially Italians) who arrived in Sao Paulo at the end of nineteenth

century. The sport thrived in the context of an emergent multi-fethnic society and

later became a trademark of Brazilian cultural identity.

The so-called “founder” of football in Brazil, Charles Miller, was an

Englishman bom in Sao Paulo. He was an employee of the Sao Paulo Railway

and member of the exclusive Sao Paulo Athletic Club who, in 1895, organised the

first '‘official” game imder the mles of the English Football Association, recraiting

players from the British conlmrmity.

Football quickly became very popular across social classes and nationalities

and it is believed to have played a significant role as an arena for inter-compiunity

interaction by bringing different cultures together, including other European

immigrants (especially Italians) who arrived in large waves in Sao Paulo during

the years of mass immigration to Brazil (1880-1910). The proliferation of grounds

28 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

and club associations followed the fast pace of urban expansion. The coverage

that football received from the media in the early 1900s reveals how this sport

was incorporated into the local culture, playing an important role in connecting

the emergent cosmopolitan society.

Urban development and football were also coimected via the proeesses of

social-spatial'segregation that emerged in the late 19* century. The practice of

foptball reflected, this division into two different groups: one formed by an

exclusive entourage of the middle-class and wealthy people who cultivated the

sport in clubs and associations; the other formed by the industrial working class,

poor black peoplp and impoverished immigrants who played football on

improvised pitches aroimd the city.

The first groups had Europe as a cultural model for the arts, entertainments and

also for sports. Football was introduced in the country as a practice for physical

training hnd-socialisation, alongside cricket, cycling, rowing, fencing and horse

racing. These sports were part of the new urban experience in Sao Paulo and many

places* w.ere designed and built specifically for its purposes.^i The magazine O

5port,’jfounded ip 1898, was the first publication to be exclusively dedicated to

spprts and ofrers folloyied it such as Cigarra Esportiva and Sportsman: they give

an account how football became popular through the proliferation of clubs and

spofrs asspci9fions.?2

The "Sao Ppula ,elite created its own exclusive clubs for sports practice y/hich

were accessed, only through membership; the main venues were Club Corridas

Paulistano (later called Jockey Club„ which-was founded in 1875 at Mooca

hippodrome). Club Athletico Paulistano'^^ (founded in-19Q0),*y4Mfo/ndve/ Clube

.* ' I

21 Jose Geraldo Vinci de Mordes:"*Ci3ade erfcultura ulJrbana na Primeira Republica. Sao Paulo 1994.

22 Ana Luiza Martins: Revistas em revista: imprensa e praticas culturais nos tempos de Republica’(1890-1922). Sao Paulo 2008.

23 Washington Luis, mayor of Sao Paulo bety^een 1914-1919, took part in the inauguratioil of the swimming pool at CAP. After leaving the city council he became governor of S3o Paulo

A Transnational Investigation of Football 29

(founded in 1890 having its headquarters at Martinico palace) and Velodromo da

Consolagao (inaugurated in 1892 for cycling and in 1901 for football

competitions). The wealthy classes of foreigners were steadily incorporated

through friendship, business and family ties as they married key figures in the

local elite.24 Although football appeared almost simultaneously in various Brazilian cities it

was in Sao Paulo that the practice took a regular and organised shape .25 The first

match played in accordance with the rales of the English Football Association

happened in 1895 at the place that is now considered the first football “stadium”

in the country — the Velodromo da Consolagao (which was indeed designed to be

a velodrome) - and in 1900 the city hosted the first Brazilian championship.2«

Moreover, the so-called “father” of the game in Brazil, Charles Miller, was bom

in the city. Miller was the son of a Scottish engineer and a Brazilian woman of English

heritage. At the age of nine he was sent to be educated in Hampshire, from where

he returned with football rales established by the Football Association, a ball and

enthusiasm for the game. Charles Miller was bom in Bras, a typical industrial Sao

Paulo neighbourhood, not far away from the train station. On his return from

England in 1894 Charles Miller recruited players among members of the Sao

Paulo Athletic Club, founded by the English community in 1888, and employees

of the Sao Paulo Railway, where he worked, the Gas Company and the London

Bank.27

state (1920-1924) and president of Brazil (1926-1930), being ‘deposto’ at the 1930’s Constitutional Revolution.

24 Morse: Formafao histdrica de S2o Paulo. 25 Gilmar Mascarenhas: Varzeas, operarios e futebol: uma outra geografia. In: GEOgraphia

Vol. 4, No. 8(2002), p.84-92. 26 Thomaz Mazzoni: Histdria do futebol no Brasil. Sao Paulo 1950.

27 Mascarenhas: Varzeas, operarios e futebol.

30 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

The first football match to be played under the official rules brought and

organised by Charles Miller took place at Vdrzea do Carmo in 1895. The Eastern

border of the city centre and the industrial zone along the Santos-Jundiai railway

line limited this large floodplain of the Tamanduatei River. At the time of this

historical first game the area was beginning to be developed, crossed by only two

roads connecting both sides of the city.

From this initial point the football pitches were spread around the city, near to

factories and along railway lines where flat wasteland was abundant.28 The futebol

de vdrzea (football played in the floodplains) became a very popular recreation

among the working class and amateur football associations came to thrive in the

city in the first decades of the twentieth century. The main areas which were

turned into impromptu occasional football grounds were located along the

Tamanduatei River, in the districts of Carmo, Glicerio, Ipiranga and Vila

Prudente, and the Tiete River, including the districts of Vila Maria, Barra Funda

and Lapa.

However it would take some years until these amateur associations could

establish their own teams and participate in official tournaments; the exclusive

elite’s teams dominated the first years of football playing in the city. The first club

founded by the working classes, and which was not related to the local elite or

enriched iifimigrants, was -the Ypiranga,. in 1906.' Later came Corinthians,

founded in 1910,, and Palestra-Itdlia (now Palmeiras) founded by Italian

immigrants in 1914.

The elite’s preferred football club was based in Club Athletico Paulistano,

which was joined by the djsocMfdodr/edcaPct/OTeiraj in 1902,29 a team bringing

together players from well-off families. Training sessions took place in a field at

FStima Martin Rodrigues Ferreira Antunes: Do velddromo ao Pacaembu; o movimento esportivo em 'Sao Paulo e a traj’etdria do futebol, de esporte de elite a paix3o nacional. In: Revista do Departamento de Patrimonio Historico, No. 5 January (1998), p. 88-95.

29 The AAP has no relation with the Palmeiras football club, created in 1914 (as Palestra Italia).

A Transnational Investigation of Football 31

AVenida Angelica, located in Higiendpolis, a wealthy southwest district of Sao

Paulo. However the pioneer football team was Sao Paulo Athletic Club, founded

by the British community in 1888. Other foreign immigrants created their own

clubs as Germania, foimded by the German commimity in 1899, the Sport Club

'International, a congregation of Brazilians, Germans, French, Portuguese and

British enthusiasts, founded in 1899, and the Mackenzie College football club

foimded exclusively by Brazilian players in 1898. All these teams were extinct by

1930 and the only survivors of this phase of “elitist” football - the Associafao

Atldtica Palmeiras and Club Athldtico Paulistano - created the Sao Paulo da

Floresta.

The main venue for organised football tournaments in this period was the

Consolagao, property of Veridiana Prado and her wealthy family.^o Veridiana

lived in the elegant district of Higiendpolis in a house designed by a French

architect and used to spend long periods in Europe. The velodrome was

commissioned to an Italian architect in 188621 and it was inaugurated in 1892 for

cycling races. In 1895 it became the firsf football “stadium” in Brazil holding a

football match organized by Charles Miller and the associates of Sao Paulo

Athletic Club, which had their headquarters just beside the velodrome.22

The initial stands had a capacity for 800 people, soon increased to 2,000

people.23 The velodrome also hosted the first official championship game of

football; the first inter-state game and the first international game in Brazil: a

combined team of “paulistas” (natives of Sao Paulo state) players against South

Afnca. In 1915 the velodrome was demolished to create space for a new road and

the Club Athletico Paulistano remained without a ground for some time until a

new one was built at Jardim America in 1917.

29 Reis Filho: Sao Paulo e outras cidades.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

32 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

Another traditional venue was located in Parque Antdrtica, an enterprise of the

Companhia Antdrtica Paulista, a brewing company established in 1888 in the

district of Agua Branca, in SSo Paulo. Next to the factory the company created a

social club for its employees and a vast recreational park with many areas

dedicated for the practice of sports, including a football field.34 xhe company was

a mixed enterprise between a German and a Brazilian so the “Germania”, a club

with German origins, was the first tenant of this field playing there for almost the

entire first decade of the twentieth-century. In 1902 the first Campeonato Paulista

de Futebol, a competition organized by Charles Miller, was inaugurated in Parque

Antdrtica with the game between Germania and Mackenzie.^s During the First

World War the field was mostly used by America football team and only from

1917 onwards by the Palestra ItMia (later Palmeiras). Three years later the club

bought the whole property converting the Parque Antdrtica into its permanent

headquarters.

Other places used for training were Chdcara Dulley, Campo do Lenheiro and

Chdcara Floresta. These places were all located in Bom Retiro, a district north of

the city centre. Chdcara Dulley, a cottage farm belonging to an American, Charles

Dulley, was the training field for the S§Lo Paulo Athletiq Club.36 Campo do

Lenheirp (Pojtuguesp for Wood Seller's Field) was an improvised field used as a

training pitch by one, of the most traditional teams in Sao Paulo, the Corinthians

Footballs ^lub, fortncled in 1910. Chdcara da Floresta was located in Ponte

Grande next to t)ie TietS River and was used by As^ocia9ao Atletica Palmeiras

Ibid. 35 Aidan Hamilton: An entirely different game: the British influence in Brazilian football.

Edinburgh 1998. 36 Ibid.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 33

and Paulistano.37 This location was also used for the final games of the Paulista

Championship in 1917,1920,1922 and 1928.3®

Table 1: Places andfootball clubs in Sao Paulo between 1890 and 1930^^

Football Clubs

Year of

foundation -

extinction

Venues

First phase - the elite’s football

Sao Paulo Athletic Club

(SPAC) 1895-1930

Chacara

Dulley

(1895 - 1930)

Mackenzie College 1898-1923 Mackenzie

(1898-1923)

Sport Club Germania 1899-1930

Parque

Antartica

(1902-1917)

Sport Club

Intemacional 1899-1930

Chacara

Dulley

(1899- 1930)

Club Athletico

Paulistano 1900-1930

Chacara da

Floresta

(1900- 1930)

Velddromo

(1902-1915)

Jardim

America

(1917-1930)

37 Rene Duarte Gonsalves Junior: Friedenreich e a reinvenfSo de Sao Paulo: o futebol e a vitoria na funda^ao da metropole. DissertafSo de Mestrado. Sao Paulo, 2008.

3® Valmir Storti and Andre Fontenelle apud Gonsalves Junior: Friedenreich e a reinvenfSo de Sao Paulo.

39 Jose Sebastiao Witter: Os esportes na cidade de Sao Paulo. In: Paula Porta (ed.). Historia da cidade de S3o Paulo - A cidade no Imperio 1823-1889. SSo Paulo 2005, v. 2, p. 595. Valmir Storti and Andr6 Fontenelle: A Historia do Campeonato Paulista: 1902-1996. SSo Paulo 1997. Websites: http://www.paulistano.org.br/historia.html; http://www.saopaulofc.net/spfcpedia/a- historia-do-spfc/genealogia/; http://www.cay.com.br/historia; http://corinthians.com.br/site/clube/historia/; http://www.palmeiras.com.br/historia (Accessed January 2013).

34 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

Associafao Atletica

Pahneiras 1902-1930

Chacara da

Floresta

(1902- 1930)

Second phase - the popular football

Clube Atletico

Ypiranga 1906-1959?

Parque do

Sacoman

(1929-1953)

Sport Club Corinthians

Paulista 1910-present

Campo do

Lenheiro

(1910-1918)

Ponte Grande

(1918-

1928)

Parque Sao

Jorge

(1928-

present)

Palestra Italia

(now Soc. Esportiva

Palmeiras)

1914 - present

Parque

Antdrtica

(1917-

present)

Associafao Portuguesa

de Desportos 1920 - present

Campo do

Cambuci

(1926-1929)

Sao Bento /

Pacaembu

(1929-1956)

Caninde

(1956-

present) Crespi Football Club

(now Clube Atletico

Juventus)

1924-present

Rua Javari

(1925 -

present)

Sao Paulo'da Floresta®

(now Sao Patilo Futebol

Clube)

1930-presdnt

Chacara da

Floresta

(1930-1935)

Caninde /

Pacaembu

(1935 -

1952)

Morumbi

(1952-

present)

Sao Paulo da Floresta was the first denomination of the reunion of Club AthMtico

Paulistano and Associa9ao'Atletica Palmeiras and it lasted until 1935; when the club was “re

funded” as Sao Paulo Futebol Clulje.

A Trbnsnational Investigation of Football 35

Map 1: Places of football in Sao Paulo from 1890'’

1 Varzea do Carmo

2 Chacara Dulley

3 Chdcara da Floresta

4 Mackenzie College

5 Velodromo da Consolafao

6 Parque Antartica

.7 Campo do Lenheiro

8 Jardim America

9 Ponte Grande

10 Campo do Cambuci

11 Rua Javari

12 Parque Sao Jorge

13 Parque do Sacoman

14 Pacaembu

15 Caninde

16 Morumbi

*> Map developed by Gloria Land, 2013. Source for the base map: Mapa Digital da Cidade,

Prefeitura do Municipio de S5o Paulo, 2012.

36 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

Co nc l usio ns

Many studies of football in Latin America in the Anglophone world assume

that there was an informal empire, and that football was a function of it. Latin

American writing on football, in contrast, often adopts a bottom-up, organic view

of the subject, stressing the importance of local actors and local contexts to the

growth of the sport.

In this chapter we have attempted to combine a transnational perspective with

a local subject in order to answer questions relating to urban growth, the British

presence and the origins of football. David Wood has remarked that the

development of sport in the late nineteenth-century is characterised by a

relationship between Europe and Latin America characterised by “mutual

influence”.'*!)

Our study presented here backs up calls made by J.A. Mangan,'*' himself

following Joseph Arbena,'*2 in suggesting that “it would be both fascinating and

valuable to locate and discuss these foreigners and locals more fully than has been

done.” We echo these calls for detail. Who designed the first layouts of pitches

and stadiums? Why did they choose these locations? Who were the British players

and eoaches, the school-teachers, the locals who had travelled? Can we build a

precise map of the British teams that toured? Who were the signatories to the first

documents establishing clubs? Can we build a repository of all these documents?

'*0 David Wood: Reading the Game: The Role of Football in Peruvian Literature. In: David Wood and Louise Johnson (eds.): Sporting Cultures: Hispanic Perspectives in Sport, Text and the Body. London 2008, p. 128-146.

James A. Mangan: The Early Evolution of Modem Sport in Latin America: A Mainly English Middle-Class Inspiration. In: James A. Mangan and Lamartine P. Da Costa (eds.): Sport in Latin American Society: Past and Present. London: 2002.

“*2 Joseph Arbena: Nationalism-and Sport in Latin America, 1850-1990: The Paradox of Promoting and Reforming ‘European’ Sports. In: James A. Mangan (ed.): Tribal Identities: Nationalism, Europe and Sport London 1995.

A'Transnational Investigation of Football 37

Whht were the players’ personal, economic and social networks outside the

Clubs?

This subject is crying out for databases of the individuals involved, detailing

their' personal relationships, their business links, who they owed money to,

borrowed from, where they lived, where they worked - and who they played with.

Only then will we be able to get to the bottom of the links between football, other

sports, financial investment and social and urban transformation in Brazil and

elsewhere in Latin America.

Football is essentially an urban sport. In Brazil it first flourished in Rio de

Janeiro and in Sao Paulo, the two cities that dominated the politics and the

economy of the coimtry for the whole twentieth century. Sao Paulo witnessed the

dvalanche of poUtical and social transformations that would follow the abolition

of slavery and the beginnings of the republican regime. More than any other city

in Brazil it experienced a technological revolution that imposed upon its

inhabitants a profound change in lifestyle. Sport was part of this neW society and

it was in tandem with the ideologies of progress and development that

impregnated the urban mindset.'*^

The history of football in Sao Paulo has direct connections with the urban

development in the city, as we have indicated in this paper. This process was

characterised by intense industrialisation, establishment of new institutions and

rupture with the rural aristocracy. It can be argued that this process of

modernisation is part of the expansion of ideas generated elsewhere in countries

like France and England, which had a great influence in the formation of the urban

elite in SSo Paulo. The redesign of the city erased the colonial village and its

countryside surroundings at once; and football became by far and away the most

popular sport in this new configuration.

‘*2 Nicolau Sevcenko: Orfeu extitico na metr6pole: Sao Paulo, sociedade e cultura nos frementes anos 20. S3o Paulo 1992.

38 Matthew Brown and Gloria Land

Such sudden changes were occurred nearly without any transitional stages.

Modem European projects were adopted in Sao Paulo intermediated by the vision

of the elite and of the foreign entrepreneurs. Town planning in Sao Paulo was not

used to try to solve social housing problems caused by immigration. Rather, urban

planning because a simple tool to modernize parts of the city, which fitted the

purposes of accumulation of capital and of economic progress by the exploration

of urban land as commodity. 44

A similar process occurred related to sports practice in Sao Paulo, which was

often introduced through the dominant classes because of support for the idea of

sports as a disciplinary institution that combined with (in their vision) the new

social modem order. Rationalization through mles of play, the organization of

sporting clubs, the idea of physical activity as a complement to work and of

“dignifying” man, all presented elements that could be related to the “civilizing

process”45 that was so important at the time. These elements were also directly

“imported” by the local elite through their ties with the British. In the first years

of its practice, football was primarily an amateur entertaining activity with a

significant role in asserting social distinctions, by means of exclusive clubs and

teams limited to a restricted membership.

The very same “civilizing process” stretched out* into the factories as

industrialists itjcoiporated another foreign concept, the ‘Vila .pperarp”, with its

own clpbs and leisure areas. Whilst they >vere part of the dominant„patemalistic

ideology of attempting, to - organize the masses,, prpmotp -“civility” and of

educating them jn apprppriate .behaviopij, the ‘Vilas opprarias” also had an

important role in the popularization of the football, j

JVorking class districts were established ,in parallel with the displacement of

the elites from the old town of Sao Paulo, whichTeft behind its sportpig legacy.

44 Rolnik: A cidade e a lei; Somekh: A cidade vertical.

45 Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning: A busca da excitaeao. Lisboa 1992.

A Transnational Investigation of Football 39

football included. Into this space, as the twentieth centmy progressed, came the

organization of popular teams of football. These teams appropriate the urban

spaces vacated by migrating elite sportsmen, and made them their own. New

popular teams incorporated manufacturing workers, black men, mulattos, and

poor whites, and launched the roots of professionalism, which finally made

possible the development of football as the “sport of the crowds” by the second

half of the century. The role of mban space in shaping and facilitating these

changes was particularly significant, and we have only just begun to imderstand

it.